Despite a previous entry, I’m not obsessed with the human sense of hearing. However, I did come across some interesting research that (eventually) lead to this story, which I shared with listeners of ‘Einstein-a-go-go’ w couple of weeks ago.Photo by Rob Parkin

The phrase “echolocation” was first coined in 1944 by Donald Griffin (Harvard University), while he was investigating the navigational behaviour of bats. Of course bats are not the only animals to use this technique. Toothed whales (such as dolphins, porpoises, orcas and sperm whales) also use echolocation, as some birds, shrews and tenrecs. Some of the sounds are at frequencies that are audible to humans and some are not, but that’s ok – they’re not usually talking to us. More . . .